


The Final Problem

by amare



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Finale, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, Wound care/recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4835573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amare/pseuds/amare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will took them over the bluffs hoping to die. When they don't, he has to figure out how to live a second life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Problem

**Author's Note:**

> I swore off of Hannigram during s2, but the finale lured me back. Thanks to [bluesyturtle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesyturtle/pseuds/bluesyturtle), [lazulisong](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lazulisong/pseuds/lazulisong), and [TheLCM](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLCM/pseuds/TheLCM) for their help/beta services/genius along the way. 
> 
> A note about the **tags/warnings** : This deals with the aftermath of what I view as a suicidal act that didn't end in suicide, so take care of yourself accordingly. There's also bound to be more tags added as I go on, but I would say chapter one is the direst it gets by far, which--YMMV--is not too dire, considering.
> 
> The rating will probably go up.

Hannibal readies a needle and thread, despite the arm bound in a makeshift sling across his chest. Will's halfway to gone, but he catches the cuff of Hannibal's sleeve and tugs.

He manages a half-smile despite the immense pain that spreads to his temple and his jaw, and says, "Please don't cut off parts of me while I'm unconscious so you can eat them."

There's a hand against his forehead, startling Will into moving restlessly, eyes rolling up to the whites to see what's going on. Hannibal strokes his hair back once. "I have no need to settle for parts." He puts a needle to Will's tourniqueted arm, the third time so far. "Sleep," he instructs.

Will does.

* * *

When he wakes again, his lips are smeared with a salve, his face is bandaged, and he's lying on a bed in a room he doesn't recognize. Someone's put pajamas on him. There's a window with its curtains pulled back, so sunlight cuts a swath across the floor. He has the blurry impression of green trees beyond the glass.

He doesn't stay conscious long, and learns later he was only awake because the dose keeping him down wore off while Hannibal was otherwise occupied. Will says, or tries to say, a lot of shit when he's coming up to the surface or going back down. He regrets remembering it and is glad the rest he can't recall at all.

One time, he calls out for Molly. Another time he talks to his dead father. A few times he tries to say things to Hannibal.

The scant minutes he spends awake are just impressions: pain in his cheek, a dull throb under his collarbone. A tinge of copper, the dry-mouthed taste of medicine. Will surges against the exhaustion and the drugs like they're an undertow, but he always goes down.

* * *

Eventually Hannibal deems him recovered enough to sit up in bed and stay conscious for longer than five minutes. There's a tray of yogurt and porridge across his lap. He's still on something, care of the IV pole perpetually at his side, but the world is mostly in focus.

Both of them know he isn't going to run, so probably the drugs are just to keep him comfortable. Probably.

"Where are we?" he asks slurrily, and carefully.

"North Carolina," Hannibal says. If he's startled or pleased by the sound of Will's voice in coherency, he doesn't show it. His shutters are up, tighter than usual. He's impassive so Will can't see the extent of his emotions. It's not like Will doesn't know he's hurt—he knows exactly what the knife of betrayal feels like. It's cut Hannibal deep if he's bothering to hide it.

Will didn't want to kill Hannibal; he knew he couldn't do it himself, but he thought he could let it happen passively. And then he got within inches of actually seeing Hannibal die, and he couldn't.

_Can't live with him, can't live without him._

Killing himself seemed like appropriate penance. It turns out that living, with knowledge heavy in his chest, is the best he's going to get.

Hannibal holds out a spoon like he actually thinks he's going to feed Will with it.

Will knocks his hand and grabs the spoon. Remembering how to use it is coming to him a beat too slowly, and he blinks.

"We'll leave the country when you're well enough to travel."

Will uses the spoon to slowly draw a smiley face in his porridge. "How bad is it?" he asks. He gestures to his mostly numb and entirely bandaged cheek. He hasn't seen a mirror. Hannibal would provide him with one if he did, which is why he won't.

Hannibal barely regards him over his own bowl. He's using his left hand because he's still wearing a sling, but it's a different one than Will remembers. Dark navy, medical-grade. He's wearing a house robe, too, looking like some rich eccentric. "You look like yourself," he says.

"With a hole hacked into my cheek?"

Hannibal sets his spoon down and blots the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He regards Will evenly, with a blank expression but direct eyes. "There's scar tissue, likely to heal unevenly, and there's a slight pull to your lip but nothing overt. I'm an excellent surgeon, Will. It's one mark on a canvas."

He remembers too well the crunch of the blade shoved just under his cheekbone. The determination to kill Dolarhyde burned a brighter fury than the pain, though. The thud of Hannibal's heart close to his ear. And, obviously, his ill-fated push toward oblivion over the edge of the cliff. He sure as fuck remembers that.

What he doesn't remember is how they survived. If he tries, he can grope for fragments: the sensation of drowning, numbness that spread from his limbs to his chest, gagging out salt water at the bottom of a boat. The next thing he remembers is Hannibal in his sling, pushing the hair from his face and promising not to eat him.

"How did we…? How are you doing? You don't seem like you were gutshot."

Hannibal shrugs without moving his shoulders, the spoon on the way to his mouth, and catches Will's not-quite-focused gaze. "I had prompt medical attention."

"Did you do it yourself?" He enjoys imagining that: Hannibal doing self-surgery on a stomach wound with one arm bound in a sling.

"With a dislocated shoulder and on the verge of hypothermia? No." He smiles enough so Will can see it. "I had help."

The ikebana arrangements on Will's windowsill and the table near his bedside, stark branches that look fire-singed surrounded by delicate and lively flowers, are beautiful enough to have been done by Hannibal. Somehow, now he doubts they were.

"Right." Will doesn't say anything else, sparing his face from the pain he can feel building. He's not quite sure what to say to Hannibal, anyway. He's not sure if he wants to chip at his walls. The state of his own addled mind has him cautious; he doesn't know what might come out if he opens his mouth.

The last thought of what was supposed to be his life is emblazoned upon his mind. He thinks he told Hannibal to let him die, a few times, when he was really out of it. Even if the thought is as unavoidable as the pain he's in, Will's doing his best to ignore it.

He figures if you've hurled yourself off of a cliff and lived, the universe is trying to tell you something.

* * *

Worrying wounds is human nature. The aberration in his cheek has him straining his tongue upwards to reach it almost without thought. The pain is a helpful deterrent to keep that from happening, but eventually he does manage to reach, tracing the puffy flesh and the spiderleg stitches over and over.

He doesn't try that again. It's painful enough make sweat prickle out until his shirt is sopping. It's also difficult to move his tongue around in his swollen face, so he saves that for the occasional treat of an ice chip.

Healing is the same drudgery it always is. He's been shot and stabbed more times than he wants to count, but this one might be the worst. The immediacy of pain in his face and chest—and the distant thought of what kind of disfigurement he could be looking at—isn't something he can tune out or eventually improve with physical therapy.

Will listens to the ticking of a clock in his room, lets that metronome lull him into remembering that time is passing.

* * *

It's a few days before he can use the bathroom on his own.

He's lived through entirely too many catheter removals in his life.

Morphine is the push of a button or the prick of a needle away, and it has the added bonus of divorcing time from meaning. When he's mostly lucid, Will reads while propped on a hillock of pillows, but his eyes get tired very quickly. When he's less lucid but still awake, he has a lot of time to think. Hannibal reads to him when he's like that, but the words are distant. Will's primary company is himself.

He tried retreating to his head and fishing there, but he saw Walter, standing in waders and holding a tackle box with the stream to his waist, and he hasn't gone back.

With nothing else to do, his goddamn eidetic mind spins circles for its own amusement. Will remembers killing Dolarhyde, so bright he can't look at it head-on, and the terrifying sensation of going over the edge, his eyes squeezed shut and his head full of Hannibal. Even more frequently, he remembers Bedelia, and Molly's swollen face in the hospital bed, and Abigail—he wishes she would visit him, but he doesn’t seem to control which ghosts haunt him lately.

Will puts his book aside when the words start to swim. He leaves it face-open on the sheets next to him and stares at the ceiling. He thinks of Bedelia more than he would have expected, wonders if she is part of the help Hannibal's received, but probably not.

He's the last bride, after all.

Goddamn drugs. If he were in less pain, or equipped to deal with the pain he has, he would dial back them back and be able to keep his thoughts better confined.

* * *

Hannibal waits while Will pulls himself to a sitting position and brings the tray over once he has. The IV is gone, replaced by injections when needed, but primarily pills Will tosses back a few times a day. He took them on an empty stomach this morning, a morning he spent reliving a particular conversation with Bedelia, which is probably why he says:

"You seduced Alana. Why didn't you use the same tactic with me?"

Well. At least he didn't ask Hannibal to put him out of his misery again. Finally confronting the awareness that's sat on his shoulders like a yoke for weeks now is a lesser evil. Ears burning, Will looks down at his tray of food.

They've graduated from porridge to eggs. Hannibal's cooking is still exquisite, even though Will's appetite is minimal.

Hannibal pauses while digging into a fluffy pile of eggs on his plate. "You're assuming I didn't?"

Will takes a bite. The taste is buttery, herby, a little off, but still good. "Seduction into a friendship isn't what I mean. I guess—"

"I brought a meal to your hotel room the day after meeting you. Or do you think I bring everyone breakfast?"

Will's fork clanks against his plate.

Hannibal's sly, a little, his lips pursed with amusement. He chews thoroughly and swallows, then chases it with juice. "I could not decide if you were impervious to interest or just resolutely heterosexual."

"I'm not—impervious. I know when people are coming onto me."

"Apparently, you don't. Your assumption was that I was cozying up to you because of professional interest, and that worked in my favor." Hannibal continues eating, proper and unbothered, and Will lets the weight of new awareness settle across his shoulders. He is not used to being blindsided. It was one of the claims to snobbishness his empathy allowed him to make. The shift is making his head hurt, and he feels dumb.

"Why didn't you make yourself understood?"

"If I had, would you have been receptive?"

"Well, I am resolutely heterosexual." The real answer isn't that glib or simple. Day one, no, Will wouldn't have been receptive. Day one hundred, same story. But Hannibal has already made Will question most of his fundamental beliefs, so how difficult would one more really have been? Will looks down at his eggs. "This is a lot to process on an empty stomach," he says, and takes a bite.

"Our relationship has reached heights a more traditional union would have encumbered." Grimly, Will wonders if that's a pun. "Don't strain yourself to imagine what might have happened."

"Oh, I'm not," Will says. He's a shit liar.

* * *

He manages a shower, careful of the bandages on his face and chest. While it feels incredible to wash off layers of old sweat and sloughing skin, Will nearly falls to the bottom of the shower stall a few times, and his legs barely get him back to the bedroom. He lies panting on the bed for a few minutes, a headache brewing at the base of his skull to match his other aches, until he manages to salvage his dignity and find a robe.

Hannibal's due to bring him breakfast soon, or he might not have bothered.

Except breakfasttime comes and goes with no sign of him, and Will fights a growing curiosity for the next hour. Hannibal's visits, their shared meals, have been like clockwork. It's enough to tempt him into opening his door—unlocked, he notes—and staring down the long hallway. The house is old, but well-kept, cream walls and dark wood floors.

Will considers trying to find him, but he's weak to the point of clutching the doorframe for support, and the hallway looks like an Odyssean journey, lengthening every second. He closes the door and hobbles back to bed.

Ten minutes later, he hears footsteps coming up the hall, muffled clacks that don't match Hannibal's near-silent tread at all. Will stiffens and tightens the robe's tie.

Chiyo opens the door with one hand, the other holding a tray with Will's breakfast. Her face is impassive, but her eyes avoid him.

"You're awake," she says, and sets the tray with its bowl of oatmeal and glass of orange juice on the table by his bed. Not Hannibal's cooking.

"Where is he?" Will asks.

"Hannibal is indisposed. I need to check your injuries." She doesn't wait for his acquiescence; she moves forward, hands outstretched, and Will leans away from her.

"Errands to run?" he asks sarcastically. "And I'll pass, thanks."

Chiyo isn't inclined to push him. She drops her hands, quick enough to clue him into her exasperation, but her face remains an impassive mask. She says nothing more about Hannibal, and looks pointedly at the tray of food before backing away, ready to leave.

"He's sick, isn't he?" He doesn't think that the common cold would put Hannibal Lecter out of commission. Alarm thumps deep within him and prickles the hair at the back of his neck.

"Eat," she says. "I did not pull you out of the ocean for you to starve yourself."

Will grabs the oatmeal and jams a spoonful of it into his mouth mutinously. Chiyo makes it to the door. Through his mouthful of gummy, barely flavored oatmeal, Will says, "I know you're in the habit, but I'd prefer you didn't lock it."

Chiyo's hand clenches on the doorhandle. There's no second click after the shuts the door, though.

* * *

Sweating, one hand pressed to the stitches on his chest, Will finds his way through the house. There's an astounding amount of rooms, and closets; he opens a lot of doors before he finds Hannibal's room.

The curtains are tightly shut, but there's enough light filtered through the fabric to see his way to the bed. Hannibal's lying there, eyes closed, wearing pajamas buttoned up to his neck. His skin looks like a shroud for his bones. Will shuffles to the bed.

"Will," Hannibal says, eyes still closed because he's a dramatic sonofabitch. Will sits down on the edge, and then his eyes pop open, sclera gleaming like an animal's in the dimness.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Merely a staph infection." Hannibal sits up, as though the movement causes him no pain, and switches on the lamp on his bedside table. The light proves his illness: he's pale, and his eyes look more sunken than usual.

"The gut wound?"

"Yes."

Will shifts to pull the covers off of him, and Hannibal lets him do it. His eyes track Will intensely, and Will ignores it.

His hands don't falter as he starts undoing the buttons to Hannibal's pajama shirt. It's as efficient as any nurse. When he draws the two flaps of fabric away, he sees that Hannibal's stomach is wrapped in an ace bandage, gauze secured underneath it. Will's hands are as clean as they're going to get; he gently pulls at the bandage until there's some give, then plucks at the top of the gauze even gentler than that. A strange and mild smell creeps to his nose, like old meat. Chiyo's neat stitches are impeccable, but the skin around the thread is red and raised. Will smooths the dressing back into place. He leaves the rebuttoning to Hannibal.

"Do you have antibiotics?"

"Of course."

Hannibal looks up at him patiently. There's no expectation, but neither is there the openness Will knows exists, when it comes to them. So he's still nursing his wounds. That's fine.

"Chiyo's oatmeal leaves a lot to be desired," Will says.

"Our options are limited, I'm afraid. But I should be able to return to meal preparation shortly."

Will shakes his head. "You shouldn't have been cooking for us in the first place. You're as bad off as I am." He knows what a staph infection can do, especially in a dangerous wound like Hannibal's got. "Guess we're stuck with Chiyo's cooking until the infection's gone."

There's two books on the bedside table. Will leans forward and grabs one of them, snorting when he sees what it is. _The Count of Monte Cristo_.

"I was not responsible for stocking the meager library," Hannibal says.

Will thumbs through the pages anyway, catching passages that ping deep recesses of memory, and when he darts a glance to Hannibal, he looks pleased, or amused.

Will clears his throat. "'On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.'" He stops when a thought occurs to him, and he smothers a laugh that threatens to echo off the walls. "Jesus, am I Dantes or are you?"

Hannibal makes a show of thinking this over. "You would make the better Mercedes. You saw beneath the disguise to the man beneath when no one else did."

Willing to play this game, for a moment, Will tucks his finger between the pages as a bookmark. He makes a contemplative noise that buzzes his cheek, twinging the nerves near his wound. "Framed and left to rot by his closest friend. If I'm Dantes, Fernand is almost too on the nose for you."

"Or you were honed as Dantes was to become the count."

Will blinks. "The abbe?"

"'I have insinuated a feeling into your heart that was not previously there: the desire for revenge.' Did you dream of revenge before me, Will?"

He swallows and looks at the thick book in his lap, finger still marking his place. "When I dreamed as myself, no." Five years as a cop should have burned the idea of justice out of him, and by the time he turned in his badge he was disillusioned—but it took Hannibal to truly eradicate it. The silence grows between them until Hannibal breaks it.

"Please, continue. I find your voice soothing."

* * *

Twice-daily treks to Hannibal's bedroom have given him a modicum of strength back. It makes shuffling into his own bathroom to change his bandages a possibility.

He had to ask Chiyo for the bandages, and she brought him sterile solution, medical tape, and more gauze, as well as some unmarked tube of ointment for his cheek. Will washes up with scalding water and uses reddened fingertips to peel the gauze from his face.

Someone—Chiyo, probably—kept his beard tamed while he was unconscious. Without their intervention, his stubble has grown out. Will holds his own gaze in the mirror while he uncovers the wound, but he can't do the same while he cleans it. When he takes a broader inventory, he sees a pale, thin man staring back at him, scruffy and serious-looking.

The gash in his cheek is a thin seam surrounded by black stitches, which look ghastly. Without their addition, he looks… fine. He's still swollen, but the wound itself will heal to a line, not a disfigurement or even a mark of character. His hands shake as he wipes the sutures down and then smears ointment.

One mark upon a canvas, Hannibal said.

It matches the old scar on his forehead. A more demure cousin to that sloppier, bigger gash. Then again, he didn't have Hannibal's delicate hand to sew him up that time.

He leaves the gauze in its wrapper on the counter. The mark of his Becoming has gone hidden long enough.

* * *

He's made it to the front porch, the sun in his eyes again for the first time in what must be a month. Will, overwhelmed and stung by the heat and the light, sits in the red-painted wooden rocking chair whoever last owned this house purchased and shields his eyes with his hand. He feels like the old women who spent most of their days keeping court on their porch, back in New Orleans, acting as an even nosier neighborhood watch. He's in a robe and boxers: all that's missing is house shoes and a glass of sweet tea in his hand, spiked liberally with vodka.

The colors strike him the most. The lawn is green and yellow, and very large; darker green trees rim the perimeter of the property, minus the break in their numbers to allow a gray gravel driveway through. There are beds of flowers just beyond the porch; Will's nose tickles with allergies, and the buzzing of insects eventually lulls him into closing his eyes.

He hears the creak of floorboards and then the door opening behind him. Though Hannibal's mostly back to being able to fend for himself, the infection held at bay, Will has a preternatural sense of him now, or amuses himself to think he does. This is Chiyo, deliberate and hushed. He doesn't turn his head or open his eyes when she comes to stand beside him.

She passes him two passports. The leather cover and the embossed stamp are unambiguous. He opens his eyes then and flips the first open to see Hannibal's face, smiling wide to show imperfect teeth without vanity, long, graying bangs flopped over his forehead, nearly in his eyes. Will almost laughs, and has a thought to wonder how many of these are stashed away, and if any of them involve a fake mustache.

He doesn't laugh when he sees his own. Subtly photoshopped to give him a fuller beard and an older version of his scar—he took the sutures out himself, clipped them with a pair of nail scissors, until they formed a heap in the skin basin that looked like dead flies. A few more days, and with careful styling of his hair to match this Will Graham's—or Julian Witteborn's, according to this—he'll be ready. Hannibal's says he's Erik Bohl from Sweden, fifty.

"How long do we have?" he asks.

"A few days. I am looking to purchase a boat."

It's all Chiyo says, and Will leans the rocking chair back, foot placed hard against the porch floorboards to keep him there.

"And you need my help?" he asks eventually, realizing, when she continues to hover expectantly.

"I am not sure what ship is suitable for crossing the Atlantic."

"I'm not sure I'm going to be crossing the Atlantic in this shape." The mere thought of braving the elements is enough to sap him of energy; he can't imagine being one man against the swells of the ocean.

"You must."

Will sighs, irritated. "Oh, I'm aware. Does Hannibal know you're kicking us out?"

"Hannibal knows it's a matter of time before the FBI catches up with you both. If you would prefer, I can leave you tied to this chair as a present for Jack Crawford."

Will rubs his thumb over the cover of his new passport. "Thanks for the offer. Look for something bigger than forty feet, with more than one pump and—hydraulic autopilot." The list of things they're going to need, especially with Hannibal still on the mend and Will with one arm he's comfortable using, grows until it's nearly insurmountable. "I'd better find it. Finding something seaworthy that one man can take across the Atlantic is… no small feat."

"Two."

"What?"

"Or three. You, Hannibal, and myself."

Will scoffs. "Like hell you're coming. I can survive being thrown from the back of a train, but I don't think my luck will hold if I'm dumped into the ocean."

"Do you intend to single-handedly pilot a small boat across the ocean with two stab wounds?"

"Yes," Will says, up until that moment not really sold on the idea.

"And what will stop you from running the ship aground and killing the both of you if I am not there?"

Pricked, Will's spine stiffens against the unyielding chairback. "What's to stop me from slicing all of our throats in the night?"

"I sleep with a gun," Chiyo says. For the first time, he looks up at her, her unmoved expression. A lock of her hair not constrained to a loose braid twirls in the breeze. "I don't trust you with him."

"Congratulations." He wishes he had that glass of boozy sweet tea to give her a sarcastic salute. "I don't trust any of us."

* * *

Will arranges for the purchase of a forty-eight-foot Nicholson, the best of limited options. He has three days to make sure it is seaworthy, and ends up forking over an egregious amount to make sure the generator is replaced, and to add wind and solar options. The whole thing ends up costing more than Will's entire savings—likely going to Molly, now—and yet he feels no tinge of guilt or curiosity when the purchase is made. _The Greyhound_ is a necessity, and clearly Hannibal has the means to pay for it.

He packs himself a bag from clothes he finds in the closet. It matches Julian's aesthetic, some New England business exec. A couple suits, ties, and expensive shorts that come to just above his knee, and boat shoes. _Boat shoes._ Will shakes his head as he crams everything into the duffle.

Hannibal's responsible for their medical supplies and his own wardrobe; Will handles everything else. There's a lot of canned goods brought on board, which will likely not delight Hannibal, but Will can fish, and the galley is as nice as any they could hope for.

The night before they leave, Hannibal checks Will's injuries and changes his bandage. He wears gloves, which Will irrationally finds absurd; he didn't stab Will with gloves, and he let an infection fester in Will's brain for months. But now his hands are careful, capable.

"Would that we had a few more weeks to let this mend," Hannibal says, indicating the mess below Will's collarbone. It's painful, but he doesn't think short of another sharp instrument he'll rip it open.

"Would that they hadn't found your house by the sea. We're on borrowed time as it is. Are you packed?"

Hannibal nods, snapping off his gloves. His gaze lingers on Will, but without a particular focus; Will buttons his shirt very slowly. He's not sure if he's flaunting the idea of covering his flesh or the sight of him wounded. Halfway through, he loses patience with his own impulse and does the rest up in his usual efficient hurry.

"A closet full of baggy trousers and sweaters," he laments. "At least I am spared a jumpsuit."

"I'm fairly sure a Swedish physical therapist—" this is what Will has decided for Erik Bohl, regardless of Hannibal's thoughts on the matter, "—wouldn't be caught dead near paisley ties." He smiles for a moment at Hannibal's resigned headshake. "Where are we going? I've charted a course to Portugal, but are we staying there?"

"I thought perhaps Croatia."

"Staying coastal?"

"If we need to leave, it's best to stay close to the boat."

Will hums. He's sitting on Hannibal's bed, neatly made. It's his usual spot, although sometimes he takes a chair instead for his back. They're halfway through _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , and Will found some C.S. Forester in the library to read next; whoever owned this house previously had the taste of a set decorator. There's no real personality on the shelves, just an assortment of classics. Will's happy enough to torment Hannibal with sea stories in exchange for laboring through the enormous metaphor of Cristo.

"We can try Spain, if you prefer. How is your Spanish?" He raises an eyebrow at Will that is a bit of a smirking dare.

"Better than my French," Will shrugs. "How's yours?"

Hannibal stares at him a beat and deposits his gloves into the trashcan. "Fluent, as I imagine you know."

"Yeah, but no one would ever accuse you of speaking English like a native."

If Hannibal's insulted, he doesn't show it. Some of the ice has been chipped from his face: his expression is as open as Will's seen it since they went over the cliff, not counting a few moments when Hannibal was in the grip of illness. Will won't begrudge him that. In terms of dignity, when Will was similarly out of his head, he begged for death.

Hannibal is actually smirking now. "My Spanish is fine. My Swedish is more of an immediate concern." 

"Ah, yes. Erik the physical therapist." Will works his jaw, serving up a smirk of his own. "What's he doing in Portugal, you figure?" 

"Honeymooning with his husband, clearly." 

Even though Will had pretty much expected that, his stomach jumps a little. He hopes it doesn't show on his face, but Hannibal's eyes continue to glint. "We should, um, get on the same page, with our cover. Before we leave." 

"Plenty of time for that on the journey," Hannibal says. "But I confess I'm out of distractions for the night, having been banned from the kitchen." 

"You can make dinner if you want. It's getting a little old, checking my meals for broken glass." He tries to make it a joke, because it is one, but his own bitterness overtakes him for a moment. Stupid. He's rattled from knowing for sure what's coming. Will wouldn't call any part of his convalescence here enjoyable, but it was limbo: now he has to go live in the world, stripped of his old skin. With Hannibal as his husband. Jesus. 

"I'll make something, then. My fondness for soup is nearly at an end." 

He leaves the room, and all of the tension in Will's body goes with him. Now it's just a room, unimbued with meaning—with Hannibal. When Will leaves the space too, it might even cease to exist. 

He gets up to leave—there's still eighty-odd things to do and to check before they sail, at dawn—but he stops and takes _The Count of Monte Cristo_ with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes from Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo."


End file.
